The current system of tax on motor vehicles will change radically, as Slovak parliament on November 26 passed a bill that is alleged to make this tax more just, environmentally-friendly and transparent.
The rates will be unified to be the same for the whole of Slovakia – unlike the current system – and the decisive criterion will be the environmental impact of the car, the SITA newswire wrote. The law is to become effective as of beginning next year and is based on the average lowest rates.
The fundamental change is that the collected taxes will become the income of state, and not of the local self-administration, as it is now. State promised to compensate for this loss in municipal budgets by increasing the incomes from the proportionate tax.
Bratislava regional Governor Pavol Frešo (Slovak Democratic and Christian Union, SDKÚ), reacted by stating that the Slovak government has started nationalising the local self-administration, having made the first step towards effectively scrapping the de-centralisation of public administration in Slovakia. Frešo added that the self-governing regions are thus stripped of their power to decide on the sum of the single tax that was under their remit, and since next year, the tax incomes of the regions will fully depend on the governmental decisions.
“The recent development in the self-administrations in Slovakia unambiguously shows a discreet, but the more intense gradual shift from de-centralisation towards the centralisation,” he said.
Frešo will ask Slovak president Andrej Kiska to return the law to the parliament for repeated discussion, he told SITA.
(Source: SITA)
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
The Slovak Spectator cannot vouch for the accuracy of the information presented in its Flash News postings.
